The whole world is the playground of today’s criminal masterminds. The worst thieves and thugs have found the dark side of globalization, exploiting the same technologies that make the Earth seem small and ripe for legitimate international commerce and trade. They have unleashed an unprecedented crime wave that is truly border-less. Less hierarchical, and operating as elusive networks, today’s criminal gangs are able to nimbly take advantage of new opportunities as they arise. They hack, steal, smuggle, launder and kill on a global scale, working with different partners and evading various law enforcement units and agencies. The most troubling convergence: the merging of international criminal activity with violent terrorism. They are all accused of a long history of committing serious crimes and are considered a menace to the world.

Joaquìn Guzmàn

Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera (b. April 4, 1957) is a fugitive Mexican drug lord who heads the world’s largest and most powerful drug trafficking organization, the Sinaloa Cartel, an organization named after the Mexican Pacific coast state of Sinaloa where it was initially formed. Known as “El Chapo Guzmán” (“Shorty Guzmán”) for his 1.68 m (5 ft 6 in) stature, he became Mexico’s top drug kingpin in 2003 after the arrest of his rival Osiel Cárdenas of the Gulf Cartel, and is now considered “The most powerful drug trafficker in the world,” by the United States Department of the Treasury.

Flower festivals are celebrated all over the world and almost around the year. Even as I write this one such festival is taking place in India, the Malabar Flower Festival, and another scheduled to start later this month. The Kegworth Flower Festival is underway in Derby, England, and a dozen other places are preparing for theirs in the coming weeks. Here we present 10 most fascinating display of flowers in different parts of the world.

Bloemencorso

The Bloemencorso, a Dutch word which means "flower parade", are held in many towns in the Netherlands and Belgium. In a parade of this kind the floats, cars and in some cases boats are magnificently decorated or covered in flowers. Each parade has its own character, charm and theme. Zundert holds the largest flower parade in the world.

The parade takes place on the first Sunday of September. The floats are large artworks made of steel wire, cardboard, papier-mâché and flowers. In the Bloemencorso Zundert, only dahlias are used to decorate the objects and it takes thousands of them just to cover one float.

The huge floats are made by twenty different hamlets and each of them consists of hundreds of builders, aged 1 to 100, who are all equally crazy about the bloemencorso. The older members of the hamlet are often responsible for planting and growing the dahlias, while the younger ones build the float in large temporary tents that are built exclusively for the event.

Summer’s here, it’s time to get the washboard abs. But did you know switching from white bread to whole grain bread can significantly boost your ability to shred fat and pack muscle? Yeah, listen up. I don’t have a nutrition degree, and I’m definitely not the master of diet, but I know quite a bit from experience. So I’m going to give you my suggestions on carbs.

I agree with most of the science on here, but it’s a little extreme to label the carbs as simply ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Let’s face it, blueberry muffins are freaking delicious… to me those are ‘amazing’ carbs.

There is some truth to these labels however. Low glycemic index foods are better for your overall health due to the way they propogate through the body. Lots of simple carbs will mess with insulin levels, which will cause headaches and all sorts of other problems. Complex carbs will keep your energy up for extended periods of time, which is necessary for good workouts and staying alert at school or work. Hopefully you already know all of this. If you don’t, I’d suggest researching more about carbohydrates.

So what to do? I’m sure as hell not going to swap my ice cream for legumes! Nobody wants to quit their lifestyle cold turkey. Here’s my suggestion: make a conscious effort to increase good carb intake while still allowing those bad carbs occasionally for a little fun. Increase the amount of water you’re drinking, that alone will dramatically improve your insulin regulation. I believe (from my own statistical analysis) that over 80% of The United States is dehydrated. [Via]

Mix a gram of dalchini/cinnamon powder with a teaspoon of honey to cure cold. Prepare a cup of tea to which you should add ginger, clove, bay leaf and black pepper. This should be consumed twice a day. Reduce the intake as the cold disappears.

[2] GINGER FOR COLDS:

Ginger tea is very good to cure cold. Preparation of tea: cut ginger into small pieces and boil it with water, boil it a few times and then add sugar to sweeten and milk to taste, and drink it hot.

The most interesting discoveries are indeed made in the most unlikely of places: a treasure-trove of photographs, documenting life in India over 100 years ago during the British Raj, has recently been found in a shoebox in Edinburgh.A total of 178 negatives were found in a shoebox for a pair of grey, size 9, Peter Lord slip-on shoes by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS). The stunning negatives were stored in 5” by 8” plate boxes and had been wrapped in copies of The Statesman newspaper of 1914.Nothing is yet known about the photographer of these historic images, although efforts are on to find out his or her identity.Among the images are some that depict the celebrations for the visit of King George V and Queen Mary to Calcutta in 1912 with the city's buildings all lit up. Others show pilgrims gathered for a religious festival; merchants selling their wares outside the Jagannath temple in Orissa; labourers pulling carts loaded with crates at (probably) the Howrah station, while another shows a woman standing outside a house, most likely, in Darjeeling.Take a look at these amazing photographs from a bygone era and marvel at what life was like for the common Indian during the British rule.